Living against God\'s will could lead to end of the world, pope warns
Courtesy: south florida sun-sentinel/wires
December 8, 2005,
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI warned Thursday that man's refusal to
submit to the will of God would lead to the destruction of the world.
The comment was made as he celebrated a Mass to mark the 40th
anniversary of
the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, which sparked modernizing
reforms in the 2,000-year-old Roman Catholic Church.
A man who abandons himself to God "does not lose his freedom", Benedict
XVI
said.
But "if we live against love and against truth -- against God -- then
we are
destroying ourselves and we are destroying the world", he warned.
Human history was like "the battle between man and the serpent, the
battle
between man and the forces of evil and death", he said.
"Man does not have confidence in God," Benedict XVI said. "He nurtures
the
doubt that God ultimately takes something from his life, that God is a
competitor who limits our freedom and that we cannot be human beings
without
casting him aside."
"But the liberty to be a human being is the liberty of a limited
being," he
added.
Pope Benedict also decried what he called the mistaken idea that
leading a
virtuous life was "boring."
During a solemn anniversary ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica, Benedict
used
his homily to talk about use of freedom and its relationship with evil.
"Man nurtures the suspicion that God, at the end of the day, takes
something
away from his life, that God is a competitor who limits our freedom and
that
we will be fully human only when we will have set him aside," Benedict
said.
"There emerges in us the suspicion that the person who doesn't sin at
all is
basically a boring person, that something is lacking in his life, the
dramatic dimension of being autonomous, that the freedom to say 'no'
belongs
to real human beings," the pontiff said.
In remarks after Mass, Benedict urged people to "overcome the
temptation of
a mediocre life, made of compromises with evil."
Vatican Council II, with its call for modernization, was a turning
point for
the church. The council's reforms allowed Mass to be celebrated in
languages
other than Latin, folk songs and guitar-playing were permitted, and
priests
at the altar faced congregations instead of having their back to them.
The council called for efforts to bridge differences between Catholics
and
other Christians. It also produced a document in which the Catholic
Church
deplored anti-Semitism and repudiated the "deicide" charge that blamed
Jews
as a people for Christ's death.
Benedict XVI described the Second Vatican Council as "the most
important
ecclesiastical event of the 20th century", as he gave the Angelus
blessing
in Saint Peter's Square on the holiday of the Immaculate Conception of
the
Virgin Mary.
Since the Council, he said, Mary had guided the Church "on the road of
authentic, conciliatory renewal, through tireless work on the faithful
interpretation and the implementation of the Second Vatican Council."
After the Angelus, the pope blessed the Olympic flame which arrived in
Italy
Wednesday ahead of the Winter Olympics to be held in Turin in February.